News & analysis of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, by Matthew Stiegler

New opinions — a rare plain-error reversal of a criminal sentence, and an expansion of disabilities-suit exhaustion

The Third Circuit today held that it was plain error for the district court to sentence a criminal defendant as a sex-offender recidivist under USSG § 4B1.5. The district court had focused on the actual conduct underlying the defendant’s prior convictions in deciding whether his prior crimes qualified as sex offense convictions, but the Third Circuit held that courts are required instead to apply the categorical approach, focusing on whether the elements of the prior crime necessarily qualify, just as in the armed-career-criminal-enhancement context.

The court disavowed dicta from its 2012 ruling in Pavulak purporting to apply a modified-categorical approach. It reversed under plain error, even though it was undisputed that this defendant’s prior acts would have qualified as sex offenses, stating, “We generally exercise our discretion to recognize a plain error in the misapplication of the Sentencing Guidelines.”

Joining Scirica were Chagares and Krause. Arguing counsel were Brett Sweitzer of the Federal Community Defender in Philadelphia for the defendant and Bernadette McKeon for the government.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is one of many constitutional or statutory protections against disability-related discrimination. The IDEA requires plaintiffs to administratively exhaust their claims before they can file suit. In its 2014 ruling in Batchelor, the Third Circuit held that the IDEA exhaustion requirement applies to claims that are raised under other statutes but which arise from rights explicitly protected by the IDEA. Today, the court extended Batchelor “narrow[ly]” to hold that IDEA’s exhaustion requirement also applies to non-IDEA claims that are “educational in nature and implicate services within the purview of the IDEA,” even when they “do not . . . arise from their enforcement of rights explicitly under the IDEA.”

Joining Greenaway were Jordan and Hardiman. Arguing counsel were Sarah Zuba of Reisman Carolla for the appellants and William Donio of Cooper Levenson for the appellee.